My experience with A Course in Miracles (ACIM) started in September 2001, with a second experience spanning from mid-2006 to the late summer of 2007. My first experience with ACIM was not related to the tragic events of 9/11/01. My life in 2001 was already a dark night of the soul. A very meaningful relationship ended, my job went overseas and the addictions that I had managed and nurtured for most of my adult life were clamoring for attention. I was a man set adrift.

I owned the book for about 8 months before I picked it up with intention. I knew doing ACIM was a commitment. I say 'doing', because ACIM is actually 3 books in one. There is a 669 page text, a 365 day workbook (one lesson per day) and a 92 page manual for teachers. Both of my journeys into ACIM were done with deliberate intention. My first time through it was a 20 month long slow walk and digestive process through the material. There were days that I read a paragraph and walked around assimilating it all day. I spent about 4 months reading the text (669 pages) and around 14-15 months doing the workbook exercises and about 6 weeks reading the manual for teachers. I read the book cover to cover. My second time through ACIM was done with the same deliberation, it took less time, about 15-16 months compared to 20. My first time through I really focused on the text...my second time through I intensely focused on the workbook. I found the manual for teachers to be very clarifying both times.

If there is a foundational thought element to a book of over 1100 pages it is the quote above. ACIM teaches that only Love is real, anything that isn't love is illusion, or a cry for love. There is only love and the perceived absence of love. ACIM hints at black-white thinking like that. For a book of 1100 pages there is little nuance or modifying distinctions. In my spiritual journey since my ACIM experiences, I have discovered many instances where ACIM is too doctrinally strident...too dualistic...too cut and dried.

I've found many who have done the course to be guilt-ridden when they experience anger or exasperation with others. ACIM is spot on when it instructs that 'knowledge can only be gained by experience'. I think the problem may lie in the fact that ACIM is a daunting task to accept, and once someone completes it, one can have the feeling of arrival. They forget the Epilogue's first sentence which says- "The Course isn't the end, it's a beginning". Nevertheless, there is a feeling of accomplishment in completing ACIM and it provides an effective framework for a spiritual practice. But some have taken it as the end all be all of the spiritual journey. There is a life time of experience to be added to the teachings of ACIM, a lifetime of YOUR experience.

For almost 3 years, broken up in two treks, ACIM was my spiritual practice. My sole spiritual practice. It was my meditation, my prayer (as a doing) and my contemplation. I consider that time transformational...evolving...enlightening. However, I did the course at an age that I was more reserved in my acceptance of thoughts and ideas; so I was able to carry a Course thought around and observe it in the real world, I wasn't seeking a new doctrine; I was seeking a deeper knowing. In my years since completing ACIM I've come to the conclusion that it gives the ego a bad rap. The ego is ACIM's boogieman, the ego of ACIM is to the Course as Satan is to Christianity. It engenders a dualistic experience of self that I've found to be a hindrance to true self knowledge and integration. ACIM also employs the language and cosmology of Christianity like it's a universal truth. ACIM also claims not to make gender distinctions, yet everything of divine reference is of the masculine. It explains this as being expedient. This may be due to the fact that Helen Schucman the scribe of this channeled teaching was a clinical psychologist by profession. ACIM has been called psychology in a Christian context. But all in all, ACIM was an experience of depth, a change in perspective. Even if I subsequently found some of it's tenets to be not resonate with my experience. I want to emphasize my experience, Marianne Williamson; a well known teacher of ACIM rightfully instructs to take every word of this Course personally, bring it to your own intimate understanding, test it.

ACIM has generated a multitude of seminar facilitators and teachers. To teach ACIM with any fidelity to it's core principles takes an almost hourly dedication to it's instruction. The aforementioned Marianne Williamson is a world renown spiritual lecturer of the principles of ACIM. A woman of my acquaintance, Lorri Coburn is an experienced, insightful instructor-guide to the deeper jewels of ACIM. Lorri's 'Miracle Musings' emails have been insightful teachings of ACIM based on her life's experiences, I have enjoyed and learned from them over the years.

ACIM has been on my mind lately. I haven't felt the need to return to it or do it again. But this reflection on my experience with the Course, where I was when I encountered it, where I am now and what it showed me about myself at a time of my life when I was off my square and grasping. This present time feels something like 2001....no, a woman hasn't left me, I'm self employed albeit on a subsistence level, my mind is clear and I'm addiction free. However, the life space I'm occupying is relatively new, there is a feeling of unfamiliarity. My spiritual journey has taken a turn to the ancient mystical, I'm enjoying that exploration and revelation. Sometimes, we sit back and reflect on the road behind us, the turns and detours that led to this very instant. ACIM for me was a fortuitous happenstance at a time when I needed exactly that. My hope is that this writing may be the nudge someone needs to encounter the Course at their divinely perfect timing...for me it was a gateway to a new understanding of myself.

Thank you for exploring this memory with me. . .

"You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly. To desire wholly is to create." ~ A Course in Miracles

Thank you, Duane, for the compliment. I'm glad you are pursuing what works for you; as the Course says, it's just one path of thousands and we all are home now if we just claim it. I like what you said about the ego being like a boogieman in the Course. Unfortunately, many of us do experience the ego as a dualistic experience of self, as you note. I think this is the ego thought system of attack using the Course against us. When this happens, indeed, it is a hindrance to self knowledge and integration. I've gone through that myself and am coming out the other side. The Course actually tells us to not be afraid of the ego, that it is nothing but a fearful thought. The joyful state of creative expression, operating through our seeming individual desires, is the Christ. If the ego thought system takes those desires and says, "That's just your separate self. You should feel guilty for that," then it leads to the lack of integration that you mentioned. If we have no judgment of anything we think, feel or want, as the Course encourages us to not judge anything, then we can have our individual expressions without guilt. Through the expression of them we engage the Christ state of joy, love and peace.

Thanks for this post--it helped clarify this issue, which had bothered me until recently.

I had friends who took ACIM and I could tell by what they said that it wasn't for me - a UU feminist and budding lesbian. On a different matter, Duane; would you be willing to explore a thought of mine that a big difference in people - maybe even a difference in Republicans and Democrats or Progressives has to do with cause and effect. Republicans generally don't get cause and effect for some reason - they don't want to or can't. What do you think about that? In your experiences and readings - have you thought about it?

Nice piece, Duane. I think you walk a nice balance between being honorary toward the work and objectively critical at the same time. What resonates with me in your piece here though is something you state aside from the subject mater of the Course. You mention the commitment, "almost hourly," that it takes to walk a sincere spiritual path. I am impressed by you (and others) who manage to do this, for only through such an every day commitment to one's path is the path deepened. Kudos to you for maintaining your journey! And, thanks for prompting me to stay with it :-)

Great reflection and thank you for sharing you're experience...as always I am so attracted to your reflections...you have become my spiritual big brother...guess I always wanted to have a big brother in this experience. My journey and intro with the Course began when I was 24 years old in south Florida living some of the greatest fun times in my life...although I have never completed the book from start to finish in almost 30! Years it is the only book that stays close to me as my ultimate blueprint..using the basis of the book and mostly the quote mentioned in this post "nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists"....I believe that the course for me has kept me here and allows me to complete my journey on the schedule agreed upon prior to entering this experience....I am a wild oat and want to experience it all....and when I realized that is part of my experience " the wild oat" I am better equipped to keep the journey flowing for now....I love you and love sharing the journey with you and your words ..you remain one of my greatest FB friends xxoo

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Betty Morelli

3/22/2014 03:07:00 am

I started the Course in 1990. Have read thru the text twice and done the workbook twice. But, I might add it was half ass I feel. With 27 years of recoveyr from alcoholism I still remember what it says when an ocassion arises that I need help. In my earlier life I had been a bible teacher for about 20 yrs.then bacame alcoholic from guilt, shame, as my marriage was dissolving. In a few weeks I will be 81 yrs old and live alone. Without Recovery and Course principles I don'[t think this would have ever been possible. I try not to be a "thumper" of any book but they have saved my life. not the books but the truths they hold.

Hi, Betty, The Course saved my life as well. I've had to guard against feeling like it's a "better" path than others, and lately am seeing it as a stepping stone to Truth, as all paths are. Truth remains exactly as it is, no matter how we awaken to it. I needed the Course to understand pure non-duality, as no other explanation worked for me. Now I'm still practicing the Course and also am practicing Christian Science, which says the same thing, but focuses more on God's Love rather than undoing the ego. The second half of the workbook of ACIM focuses on love, but I was so caught up with the ego dynamics that I had to hear about Love from a different direction. It all comes down to Love. Love without opposite. I rejoice in all the ways we find Love and heal, and rejoice in your healing. Thanks for sharing your wonderful story.

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Brian Jones

8/23/2015 01:20:09 am

Sounds like a bunch of psycho-babble.....wishy-washy and cult based. Life is more simple than many believe possible.
Jumping on a band wagon when you do not know who is driving is foolish and the journey is not yours, but someone else's
Make it simple and yours !
~with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor~

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Author

Duane TownsendObserver of myself and society. Manager of the Divine, and the profane of those mirrored phenomena. 'I AM'